Chapter Thirty: The Dump Truck Is Off

This case had neither a sophisticated modus operandi nor a profound background. The sheer destructive power of a delivery truck crashing into a shop was, however, quite spirited. I wonder if the unfortunate shop owner ever received any compensation.

"What are you looking at?" Noticing Karasawa's gaze fixed in one direction, Conan turned around and saw the tightly shut restroom door.

"That middle-aged man—his state is all wrong," Karasawa said, spouting nonsense. "How should I put it... there's a sense of murderous intent?"

Conan looked at Karasawa's expression with suspicion, surprised that he wasn't joking. "...Are you serious? Although he does look very angry, 'murderous intent' is a bit..."

"Did I forget to mention it earlier?" Karasawa laughed. "My parents were scholars in clinical medicine and psychology."

That was an interesting claim. Conan pondered the man's demeanor carefully and asked, "So, your conclusion is based on psychological assessment?"

"No, it's more accurate to say that I have experienced the feeling of being pushed to the edge—that moment of uncontrollable impulse where you think, 'I want to kill him.' He gives me a similar feeling." Karasawa casually tossed out a few dramatic lines before getting to the point. "He’s been in the restroom for far too long."

Did Karasawa just nonchalantly say something extremely dangerous? The worry that had plagued Conan all morning—that if he weren't careful, his new friend might take a wrong turn and force him to tearfully turn him over to the police—washed over him again.

About ten minutes later, the middle-aged man finally walked out of the restroom and returned to his seat.

Prompted by Karasawa, Conan had been keeping an eye on the man, and he immediately noticed something abnormal.

"He was licking his fingers just now," Karasawa noted.

"He switched hands while drawing," Conan added.

The two exchanged a glance and nodded. Whether they were truly on the same wavelength or not, they both kept their eyes on the man's table.

"President Ohara, are you kidding me?" Aihara pushed the papers on the table forward rather rudely. "Do you think that just because I'm about to quit, you can squeeze every last drop out of me? You want all of this done by tomorrow?"

"Aihara, this is an expedited order! You knew the situation when you accepted it!" Ohara pushed the papers back without yielding, then irritably pulled a cigarette from his pocket and clamped it in his mouth.

He looked at a bus passing behind Aihara, patted his pockets, and said, "My lighter is gone. I'm going to go look for it." With that, he stood up and headed back toward the restroom.

Aihara grumbled to himself while flipping through the documents. Just as Conan was about to follow President Ohara to see what he was up to, Karasawa suddenly stood up.

"What's wrong?" Conan couldn't help but stand up as well.

"The truck—that delivery truck!" Karasawa said only those words before pushing the shop door open and sprinting out.

Conan repeated, bewildered, "The truck?"

He didn't have time to think. He chased after Karasawa, only to see his friend’s back receding like an arrow shot from a bow. At the top of the slope, a box truck was rolling backward, gradually picking up speed.

Karasawa's target was clearly the vehicle. After a moment of reaction, Conan understood the situation. The truck wasn't being driven in reverse; it was sliding down the slope, and its trajectory led straight toward the small shop located at the bend of the hill!

Conan’s pupils contracted, and he began to run in that direction as well. Karasawa had already caught up to the accelerating truck, leaped off the ground, grabbed the side mirror, and climbed onto the door.

Karasawa glanced into the empty driver's cabin, then raised his right fist and smashed it heavily against the window.

Under Conan’s stunned gaze, Karasawa shattered the glass into a spiderweb of cracks with a single blow. He reached inside to unlock the door, pulled it open, and nimbly scrambled into the driver's seat.

By now, the truck had accelerated to the speed of a moving vehicle. Fortunately, the key was still in the ignition. Karasawa started the engine and slammed on the brakes.

Even with Karasawa’s fluid, continuous movements, the truck was already within a hundred meters of the shop. When he locked the brakes, the truck left two distinct skid marks on the asphalt. Amidst the screams and gasps of pedestrians, the box truck came to a terrifying halt just two meters from the shop.

"Karasawa!" Conan, who had run over ten meters and then doubled back, felt his heart racing from the exertion and the fright. He jumped onto the open driver's door to check on his classmate who had just performed an action-movie stunt. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Karasawa, having sprinted two or three hundred meters and performed a death-defying stunt, gasped for air and leaned back against the seat. "I did it. That's great, I actually did it..."

He knew it. As long as the intention was to help others, the "Conan-verse" would allow for any kind of action-movie performance—completely unobstructed, as if helped by the gods.

Back in the shop, Aihara, who had been confused as to why two kids were shouting and running, turned his head at the sound of the others' screams. Seeing the rear of the truck just two meters outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, he finally realized he had narrowly escaped death. Breaking into a cold sweat, he shouted and scrambled away from his seat.

Karasawa jumped down from the cabin and looked at the chaotic but fortunately unscathed shop. He let out a breath and looked at the door he had broken. "Oh dear, it seems I’ll have to pay for a window..."

The pedestrians who had witnessed the thrilling scene began to react; some cheered, and others applauded.

"Is that really what you're focused on?" Conan smacked him irritably, then looked at the back of Karasawa’s hand and his wrist, which had been grazed by the glass. "Clean that up! You're dripping blood!"

Among the seasoned residents of Beika City, someone had already called the police. By the time Karasawa had wrapped his hand with a bandage—leaving Conan wide-eyed at the fact that he’d pulled a bandage out of his bag—the police had already arrived on the scene.

Because of Karasawa’s timely intervention, the accident hadn't turned into a homicide, so the detectives from the First Investigative Division didn't need to attend.

After briefly explaining how he had observed the truck’s strange movement from the top of the slope, Karasawa walked back to the shop, ignoring the truck driver’s profuse thanks and repeated insistence that he didn't need to pay for the damage.

The books they had bought were still on the table, untouched.

Aihara, having escaped disaster, grabbed Karasawa’s hand, his emotions overflowing. "Thank you so much, truly, thank you. It was so dangerous—my god, what kind of bad luck is this? I can't imagine how I encountered such an accident..."

Karasawa looked past him to President Ohara, who had just emerged from the restroom with a face that shifted between pale and ghastly. He said meaningfully, "To survive such an accident, isn't that also a different kind of luck?"

President Ohara glanced at the truck parked in front of the door and gritted his teeth.

"Sir," Karasawa said, pulling his hand away from Aihara and suddenly patting President Ohara on the shoulder. "You almost encountered danger too. Be careful."

***

"Was that accident caused by that man?" Half an hour later, after assisting the police with their report, Karasawa and Conan left the shop. Conan asked.

"Most likely." Karasawa shoved his hands into his pockets and slung his ever-present commuter bag over his shoulder. "The truck driver said he wouldn't have parked in such a dangerous spot, but his usual unloading space was taken by a small car today, so he was forced to park on the slope. He also remembered setting the handbrake and locking the wheels when he got out. But when I climbed in, the handbrake wasn't engaged. And that small car? It belonged to that man."

With no injuries or major losses, the case was closed as an accident caused by the driver’s error. The only victim, perhaps, was the truck driver's insurance company.

Not knowing the true method, Conan couldn't help but speculate. "How did he do it? Even if he climbed out the window while going to the restroom and released the handbrake, he wouldn't have had time to get back to the shop, right?"

"There must have been a time-delay device. The timing had to be controllable."

"Exactly. Otherwise, if he didn't leave his seat in time, he would have been killed too. So, what did he use?"

"High-tensile cable?"

"Unlikely. It's not easy to set up on a street... Hmm, ice? Did he use ice to prop up the wheels?"

"That sounds less reliable than a device to pull the handbrake."

"No way, you didn't see anything when you climbed in. Do you think he'll try again?"

"Who knows? Maybe he used an ice-based device. I don't think so, though. It felt like an impulsive murderous intent. Once it failed, he wouldn't have the stomach for a second attempt."

"Your theory is the one that's truly unreliable. Wouldn't the ice leave water marks?"

The two walked back leisurely, exchanging conjectures. As they chatted, Conan glanced at Karasawa’s wrist sticking out of his pocket, wrapped haphazardly in gauze, with faint lines of pink blood seeping through.

...So, Karasawa really is a good person, isn't he?

Behind them, Akai Shuichi, who had witnessed everything today, tugged at his mask. He stopped at a corner and quietly watched Karasawa’s back as he walked toward the Café Poirot.

"Akira Karasawa... you’ve not only grown up healthy and whole, but you’ve become a fine young man. If they knew, they would be so proud of you."

On a more distant street, in a dark alleyway, Ohara Kazuo, who had failed to achieve his goal, walked back to his company in frustration.

Next week, Aihara was supposed to resign. After this failure, Aihara would likely never want to go to that shop again, where he had almost lost his life. His murder plan could never be carried out again.

He sighed, unsure if it was out of resentment or relief.

He reached for the cigarette pack in his coat, wanting to light one to ease his frustration, but his fingertips touched the hard edge of a card instead.

"What is this..." Ohara Kazuo frowned and pulled it out.

It was a red card, the size of a business card. On it, newspaper clippings of various sizes were arranged to form a short message:

"Your sins and crimes have been laid bare to us.
Do not feel lucky for failing to carry out your evil deed.
From, The Phantom Thieves of Hearts."